"By this fraud have I won me, year by year, A hundred marks, since Fve been pardoner. I stand up like a scholar in pulpit, And when the ignorant people all do sit, I preach, as you have heard me say before, And tell a hundred false japes, less or more. I am at pains, then, to stretch forth my neck, And east and west upon the folk I beck, As does a dove that's sitting on a barn. With hands and swift tongue, then, do I so yarn That it's a joy to see my busyness. Of avarice and of all such wickedness Is all my preaching, thus to make them free With offered pence, the which pence come to me. For my intent is only pence to win, And not at all for punishment of sin. When they are dead, for all I think thereon Their souls may well black-berrying have gone! For, certainly, there's many a sermon grows Ofttimes from evil purpose, as one knows; Some for folks' pleasure and for flattery, To be advanced by all hypocrisy, And some for vainglory, and some for hate. For, when I dare not otherwise debate, Then do I sharpen well iny tongue and sting The man in sermons, and upon him fling My lying defamations, if but he Has wronged my brethren or—much worse— wronged me. For though I mention not his proper name, Men know whom I refer to, all the same, By signs I make and other circumstances. Thus I pay those who do us displeasances. Thus spit I out my venom under hue Of holiness, to seem both good and true. "But briefly my intention 111 express; I preach no sermon, save for covetousness. For that my theme is yet, and ever wass 295